Weekend Babble

How was your weekend? Right after work on Saturday (yes, I work half day on saturdays and I am still hoping for that elusive 5-day week), a friend and I drove to Bukit Tinggi to visit Uncle Fong (whose farm story was featured in a local newspaper as well as on my blog on the same day sometime last month). A first visit for my friend and a third for me.

Uncle Fong was expecting me as I had earlied texted him. He was cleaning out the water filter when I arrived. Poor man. Has been on his feet the whole day and had not even taken his lunch. I guess sometimes when you're so engrossed with work one can stave off lunch! Not for me though. No matter how busy I may be, I make sure I have my meals. You won't want to fall sick when you have work deadlines to meet. We chatted whilst he cleaned out the water filter. Before my arrival, an entourage of 20 people had just left his property. I was shocked to learn that 20 people stepped foot on his house. Gosh...how can he handle such a large group when he has chores to attend to. He said that he felt embarrassed that he couldn't quite attend to that group of visitors as he has work to do. I was thinking 20 people might just be too large a group to visit his farm. Maybe 10 or less would have been better.

Uncle Fong offered to brew us some tea after he was done with his filter cleaning. My friend and I agreed and we wandered off to his chicken farm (where passionfruit, bananas, mangosteen and durians are grown) whilst he busied with the tea brewing and a phone call. My friend and I laughed ourselves silly in the chicken farm where I was experimenting with a photography technique I read a couple of days ago. Didn't turn out well. Deleted those photos. I will need to try that out again another time. I hope no one heard girlie laughs ringing through the otherwise quiet farm and neighbouring houses. Oops..maybe Uncle Fong did. He must have wondered what got us into stitches in the chicken farm.

After picking up some soon-to-be-ripe passionfruits, we joined Uncle Fong for some Chinese tea in the living room of his home. For some strange reasons, we all chatted like a couple of good o'l friends who have known each other for quite sometime. We talked about investment in the local share market, travels and food. From what I gathered, Uncle Fong seemed to enjoy the DIY kind of travels with a map and a keen sense of adventure on his mind. For someone his age to backpack is indeed a marvel as not many people can do the same thing. I know I am not as adventurous as he is. And neither is my friend.

Uncle Fong offered us a homecooked dish of yam with pork. I love yam but not pork (I dislike the smell of the meat) so I politely explained so as not to offend him and ate the yam. A tasty dish that goes very well with rice. And we did just that. Uncle Fong heated up some pre-cooked rice and made a dish of steamed veggies (drizzled with soy sauce and sprinkled with fried onions) and voila there you have a simple and tasty dinner for the three of us.

As we were finishing up our meal, a mutual friend called him up. She's on her way to the farm. What timing! I guess my friend and I are in for a second round of dinner. And that's what we all did. Except for Uncle Fong. He brought his Chinese tea with him to the restaurant. No second round of food for him. Just tea and keeping company with a bunch of us. We enjoyed a dinner of fried tilapia fish, steamed egg, steamed tofu and stir fry veggies which cost us no more than RM10.20 each! This is a small village settlement so everyone seemed to know someone. A friend of Uncle Fong's son was there with his family. We were introduced to him and got to know that this man is thinking of settling down in Bukit Tinggi as he likes the environment here. He works from home so there's no commuting to work problem. Good for him. I don't mind retiring here though. There are hiking trails and waterfalls in the vicinity. Weather's cooler than in the city. Affordable food and fresh fruits and vegetables are aplenty here. What is there not to like isn't?